The Sprightly Dugong

Flying Kites with ze Germans and ze Kiwis

2012-01-26T01:24:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday after a few beers Vern took Jeremy and I to the park to show us his kite. Vern is quite the skilled kite flyer, while Jeremy and I struggled to keep the beast in the air.

Here I am dodging the kite strings, while Rover strives to catch them.

After a few hours of fighting uncoordination and tipsiness Jeremy and I were able to keep the kite flying. A roaming dog had different ideas and amused himself greatly by trying to bring the kite down!

Success to the little guy!

The not-so-obvious dangers of running

2012-01-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

I found this sign on the east side of Mt Ainslie.

On average I have run through here once a week and have done for the last 7 years. I wonder for how long 'unexploded ordnance' has been a potential threat (besides the constant threat of boxing kangaroos). I think they have struggled to find all of the still-live ammunition as the closure to this area of the nature reserve has been extended until the end of Jan 2012.

Natural Australian

2012-01-14T23:40:00.000-08:00

I was watching the third day of the third test against India today. Unfortunately I missed Kumar's wicket. Why? I was busy putting tomato sauce on my meat pie!

New Years Toga Party at Coogee

2012-01-10T01:19:00.000-08:00

Is there any other combination of words that describes awesomeness better than that title? It pretty much sums up my New Years.

Pictured : Awesomeness

On the 28th December I was at a Amanda and Goof's place pondering what to do for New Years (the Ainslie football club was looking pretty certain for a while) when Amanda suggested I join them in a trip to Coogee beach to party with Alison Campbell in a toga (you may remember her from the sheep races).

Alison and her house mate Dan

Pinko joined us to turn our trio into a quartet and inspired the next greatest idea - to turn our small group into a ninja turtles tribute.

Pinko, Amanda, Goof and me proudly representing the 1980s childhood TV

We arrived at Alison's on New Years just in time to help make punch and fill up the beer bin. The beer bin was an inspired idea by Alison's roomie, Dan.

Genius on wheels!

We carted all of this to a park by the beach (it was a 3 minute walk) and then set up toga volleyball, toga cricket, and toga badminton. Oh yes, toga sports - somehow they day just got better.

We were soon joined by other like minded Roman wannabes Natalie, tall bloke, Geoff, and Geoff's missus. Pinko, who was visiting a friend also turned up. He found us by walking through the many parks on Coogee beach while helpful people gave him directions - "the other toga people are over there!" I guess we had grown in notoriety.

Apparently we stood out.

The BBQs were fired up and Pinko, Goofy, and I decided it was high time we tucked into my massive bottle of Duvel, a farewell present from the Fenner sports and arts committee.

That beer is bigger than I am

The Bondi fireworks followed dinner and then we packed up to continue the party at Alison's.

Goof and Amanda watching the fire works.

Once back we talked, we danced, we limboed (I only limboed on my way to the beer fridge), and we had water fights.

Natalie, in her stylish fitted sheet toga.

At around midnight we wandered to another park (next door to Alison's) and watched the Sydney New Years fireworks.

This is Geoff - he appeared out of nowhere. He also wins the best toga prize.

At some stage we slept.

Dan and Alison prepared brekkie for us the next morning. We visited the beach, I visited a pub and then...we punched on again!

Punching on!

The long and dusty road home

2011-12-28T00:22:00.000-08:00

I returned to Canberra via the snowy mountain highway once again - enjoying the empty and windy roads through the foothills of the Great Dividing Range.

Jingelic - what you see is pretty much the entire town

All was going swimmingly until the long patch of dirt (about 35 kms) between Tumut and Wee Jasper. I took the signposted turnoff to Wee Jasper, but I supposed to take the next, unsignposted turnoff. I ended up doing an extra 10 kms of really rough dirt road. The other trail, although supposedly longer is better graded and has less hairpin turns despite being the more minor road.

The memorial at Tumbarumba

8 kms out of Wee Jasper, on the final hairpin, my concentration wavered and my front wheel found a nice big trench on the side of the road. Even though I was moving quite slowly down I went, the rocks gouging massive chunks out of my right fairing.

Luckily all the damage is aesthetic and the bike still works fine. I stopped in the Wee Jasper pub, The Stables, for a beer and to watch a bit of the cricket. I ran into a young bloke who also recently walked away from a motorbike accident, although he was hit by a moving car and his GS 500 has since been totaled. Here is a link below to a great video of him and his bike zooming around Wee Jasper.

Wodonga Races

2011-12-28T00:00:00.001-08:00

I went to the Wodonga Boxing Day races this year. Pictured is the fascinator that stood out the most.

It is exactly what you think it is.

And people wonder why I hang shit on the south side of the Murray

The Earledom

2011-12-15T01:18:00.000-08:00

After a decade of campus lifestyle I finally took the big step forward and moved out. I found a great place in Lyneham, just around the corner from Tilley's. My new address is on Earle St.

My new abode, nicknamed the Earledam.

It has a large kitchen and a servicable, if lightly overgrown, backyard. It also has a garage for my motorbike, which saves me about $100 a year in insurance.

I no longer have to worry about bums stealing/vandalising my bike

I live with two ex-Bruce Hall residents, both of whom have graduated from uni. One of them recognised from the interhall AFL competition as we played against each other.

The kitchen in it usual state of repair

It's a bit further from the city and uni than Fenner, but it is much easier to get to Mitchell (the location of my new job).

The backyard, just ripe for some beers in the sunshine

Stubbsy has made the transition across to the Earledom ready to resume his mascot duties, although he currently just resides on my bed watching TV all day.

Stubbsy making himself at home on my bed. He seems to have lost his Bombers scarf.

There is only a small amount of storage space in my room, so I a using plastic tubs for my books and DVDs. I also had to buy a new desk for my computer.

My new desk. they are much more expensive than I remembered.

I also have too much beer to easily store. Here is a photo fo half of the beer that had to be transported (by motorbike) from Fenner to the Earledom.

Half of my undrunk beer. I found space for it all, but it was tough.

It took me one and a half days to clean by flat in Fenner, but I guess I did a good enough job as I got my bond back.

My flat in Fenner. I lived here for 4 years - that's longer than most degrees!

And so it was with a heavy heart I finally packed up my things and left Fenner, which has seen me through a Bachelor of Science, a graduate diploma in Science Communcation, and 90% of a Phd.

2011 winter comp

2011-12-08T19:28:00.000-08:00

The stats from the winter ACT 8-ball comp were released today. I started strongly this season, winning just above 70% of my games until the final four week in which I suddenly slumped horribly. I ended with a win percentage of 58% which placed me 19th in Division 3 (from about 60 players).

My ACT ranking are on the rise also. After the winter season stats were entered into whatever database the committee uses. I rose 40 places to be ranked 120th in the ACT. I am still debating whether or not I play another season but I would like to creep into the top 100. I have a sneaking suspicion our team will drop to Div 4, which I am not too keen on.

RedRum

2011-12-07T03:21:00.000-08:00

Do you know that feeling you get when you've just lost 6 hours of work?

The feeling of helplessness that slowly breeds deep the pit of the stomach, feeding off the uncertainty of the last click of the mouse button.
Even as your mind scurries over your most recent actions to determine if you actually have displaced the metaphoric blood, sweat, and tears poured into a literal lexicon of intelligence; the uncertainty that plagues you snowballs into an infallible truth.This simple realisation precludes a narrowing of vision to include nothing but the computer screen, which, in turn, fades into a blur.
The sudden rise of rage that cannot be quelled without immediate retribution on any animate or inanimate object that is at hand after which you are once again left tired, lost, as well as physically and mentally sore.
The sudden shift in thinking as you try the most inconceivable methods of recovering lost documents, each one more improbable than the last until finally you collapse into the pit of despair; the mind shuts down and slowly...nothing.
Yeah, I just felt that - luckily I was wrong.
On a positive note I have just realised a flaw in my saving and backing up techniques.
I copy all my latest and greatest work from my computer to my flash drive, which is then saved into my computer at uni. This is apparently backed up on some mega storage system somewhere in the RSC. Anyway, for a brief moment I thought I had accidentally dragged the old stuff from my flash drive to my PC which has my new stuff (instead of the other way around). Copy and Replace - why yes, don't mind if I do. Bada boom bada bang, all my recent hard work replaced with my not so recent inadequate work. Fortunately I didn't do anything backwards - at least that's what my newly acquired house mates should be thinking.

Final Days

2011-12-04T04:15:00.000-08:00

The end of my tenure at Fenner is nearing an end (actually at the time of writing this article it has already finished), but there is still one formal ball to be had before I leave the twin towers that epitomise the Australian tertiary education.

Georgia and Bec in the first photo and Isaac and Blake in the second - sassin' it up

I attended my final Valedictory dinner. It was a fun affair as usual. As Sub Dean as I was seated on one of the VIP tables, which means free alcohol, and so I (over)indulged in booze.I picked up my third (and final) graduation mug and received my final award.

The Head of Hall, the lovely Dr. Jasmine Jury, decided that Fenner needed an award that recognizes long-term commitment. After too many years of involvement it was decided to name the award after yours truly. This means a) I can now walk around legitimately asking "Don't you know who I am" and b) I now have an award at the ANU named after me!

The draws women like moths to a flame!

To win the award, a resident has to be in their last year of residence, have lived at the Hall for at least three years, being involved in interhall arts and sports throughout their residency, have held positions as an office bearer and on the social committee, and to have performed well in the roles. I was the inaugural winner, but another ressie also one it this year (Laura Clarke).

That's Laura on the right, with Georgia

The prize for winning such a prestigious award - we are now VIP alumnis, and will be invited back to every Commencement and Valete Ball as VIP guests until Fenenr Hall stops being Fenner Hall or they lose my address. An honour board will be put up in the common room next to the other major prizes (Head's Collegiate, Fellows Prize, Arts and Sports person of the year, etc) which will record all the recipients and the year they win the "Phillip Gatt Award".

Here I am with Louisa and (2010 Sub Dean) Kate.

After Valete most of the SR team ended up at Knightsbridge where we drunk cheap cocktails and made insightful but humorous observations about the world around us.

Is this the last time Grimesy, Michael Dan and me will get to sing our song - We four men, drinking beer...

Dancing Prison

2011-10-26T21:17:00.000-07:00

I've been writing all day and my mind is starting to go a little crazy. Anyway, check out this crazy video - a prison in the Philippines in which the Warden has decided to limit gang feuding through the medium of dance.

There a plenty of their videos (I think they perform for the public once a month). This particular dance clip is of much higher quality than the rest, it turns out they were visited by dancers/choreographers, which explains the black and white guys as lead dancers.

Homecoming Queen

2011-10-26T04:50:00.000-07:00

12 months have flown by without anyone the wiser (I definitely haven't learnt anything new anyway). It seems like only last week that I was trying to hide my sniffles as Pinko jetted off to the States for his first post doc appointment, and now here he is sucking on a cocktail like there isn't enough tail!

He loves it!

Mid October Pinko returned to our sea-girted land and when he flew into Sydney the boys were there to meet him.

Pinko, Marty and Roberts living the good life (spare a thought for the under appreciated photographer)

We had a gay old time rocking out in downtown Sydney. The first night we drank ourselves silly at the bar associated with the backpackers we were staying at.

Many friends appeared for the first night and I leaned a valuable lesson - Sydney requires pants that cover the ankles.

The next day morn Pinko and I revived ourselves with a shaky 5 km run and some kebabs. Then the team headed to Manly so that Pinko could swim at a beach in a cool summer rain, while Marty and I enjoyed some tasty cocktails.

Marty and I enjoyed a competition of pick a cocktail from the menu they no longer have the ingredients for.

Our third and final night took us on an eventful journey to Surry Hills to watch the French valiantly overcome an undermanned welsh squad in the Rugby World Cup semi final.

The Dolphin hotel is Australia's only known sideways drinking hole.

I managed to procure a reserved sign from the Hotel which I will use for dastardly deeds in the future (look out Canberra).

Here I am reservin' some beer

Somehow, amidst the extreme bigness of Sydney I ran into Mel Stammell at the Dolphin Hotel, despite the fact that she too lives in Canberra.

Mel and Me

After many beers Roberts and I took a walk down Oxford Street before finding our way to a rooftop bar with Marty to finish off the night. All in all it was a splendid trip and wait for the moment we do something similar again.

Not every establishment we visited was classy. Here are the boys bashing there way through some bathroom doors.

Sports, Piestche, AND Bill

2011-09-19T18:19:00.000-07:00

One lazy Saturday us boys headed to the Tradies to enjoy a lazy afternoon of watching sports, drinking the beer and celebrating Piestche's birthday. It was special day because on offer was the following - 2 x AFL finals, 2 x NRL finals, 2 (or maybe 3) x rugby world cup matches, and the thrid day of the Australian/Sri Lanka Test match. The day went well and we were all very gentlemanly like, until I found out it was Bill's birthday too. So after drinking all day it seemed only fair to celebrate Bill's special day too. Goof, Jase and I headed to town and that's about where I need photos to remind me what happened.So, it turns out Bill was allowed behind the bar at the PhoenixWe had martinis
The Bartenderess came out for a photo...
I don't know what that is, but it has milk in it! I also have my sunglasses still - they did not make it home with me (possibly left at macca's).

Summer Journeys - Adelaide to Albury (last leg)

2011-08-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

The final leg was by the most mentally challenging. I was excited about following the Murray River from Adelaide back home, but I think Michelle found the landscape too bare and dry (in other words too Australian).

One bike, one river

From Adelaide we rode through a hailstorm of locusts to Murray Bridge (that is the name of the town) and then wound our way north through tiny villages such as Blanchetown and Swan's Reach heading towards the Sturt Highway.

Yeah, Blanchetown was weird

We had lunch at in a quaint little town that had general store. It was for sale and the owner's did not seem happy about owning it.

Water skiing in Renmark

We passed a place called Kingston (the 2nd one in SA) OM, where OM stands for On Murray. We stopped in Renmark for a rest and a cool down and so I could steel myself for the 130km straight that separates Yamba from Mildura.

Cool fountains: Renmark

The only highlight from this one and a bit hour journey was crossing the SA border (I like taking photos of border signs).

These photos make me think I've achieved something

We picked up eating supplies in Mildura and searched for a suitable camping place on the Murray. We found one about 30 mins after nightfall and proceeded to share our 'tent' space with approximately one million mosquitoes. I clocked up about 1 hours sleep.

Michelle with breakfast the next day. She was not pleased as heaps of mossies flew out of bag as soon as I opened it.

The next day we broke records for how quickly we could pack up camp in order get away from the mossies. I was super tired, but I loved the scenary on the drive home, sticking to the Murray Valley Highway and stopping every time I thought I might fall asleep whilst driving. We crisscrossed the NSW/Vic border multiple times before reaching Mulwala where we stopped to check out the old war machines.

Using my matrix-like abilities in Mulwala

Finally we shot through Corowa and Howlong on the way back home where was a warm bed and substantially less mossies.

Howlong is a special place with a special sign

The next day we borrowed Mum and Dad's car for the drive back to Canberra. I feel the need to point out that while the were less mossies in Albury than on our night out camping, there were still some in our bedroom.

The Murray being dammed in Albury

You see, many a mosquito hitched a ride with us inside my bike bags. Those sneaky bastards than terrorised us the following night.

The Dangers of Rogaining

2011-08-22T04:19:00.000-07:00

A warning sign just outside of the West Australian State champs rogaining area.

Whoa! What just happened?

2011-08-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

In a crazy turn of events I had a strange night out on Thursday evening. It began with a quiet couple of drinks with some ground floor ressies, and ended like this...

Five of the coolest cats in town - for reference Mira is the one in the middle.

Michael was playing his violin with a DJ and a keyboardist at the local venue the Clubhouse, so he decided to get himself painted for the gig. Mira, a face paint artist, attacked him with gusto, (and blue paint) for the following effect.

A blue Liu

Many of the lively party goers in his room also opted to become human canvases before venturing out on the town.

Myself, Michale and Stuart - Sturat did his own painting.

The paint was such a hit that I was constantly questioned by others at the Clubhouse - all of them wanted to know where they could get their faces painted. I soon found poor Mira with her kit out painting total randoms in the stairwell! I will admit I was a bit peeved that we went from being the unusual kids in the crowd to just being the norm.

Michael tears it up on stage

Oh, an Michael sounded awesome - it was even cooler that his electric violin had some type of wireless attachment so he could play whilst stalking through the crowd.

Playin' the crowd, I got refelcted glory by hanging around him when this happened

Breaking to Daily Grind

2011-08-17T18:57:00.000-07:00

Cracked is a comedy website I visit - here are two links to some photoshopped image competitions that they have. Both are stupendously funny.

The first one is based on combining multiple movies to make a super movie - named
Insane Movie Ideas Built out of Existing Movies

This one is Unseen Drawbacks to Living in a an Action Movie

Enjoy!

Australian University Rogaining Championship

2011-08-16T01:54:00.000-07:00

On Thursday last week Sarah and I flew to Perth in an endeavour to bring the Nigel Aylott Trophy back to the ANU. After our cleanup at the ACT champs the ACT rogaining association had high hopes for us. This year the National university champs were held in conjunction with the West Australian State Championship, and by golly do those WA peeps love their rogaines. Over 130 teams turned up for the event.

Swan River - the camera is a but blurry due to some lens smudges (it gets worse)

We stayed the night in Fremantle and enjoyed a day relaxing before the big event by visiting a local bakery called Abhi's and swimming at Cottesloe Beach. Late in the afternoon a mini bus picked up all the student rogainers an drove us to the Hash House (ie starting/finishing point and camp area). We got a brief tour of Perth on the way.

Abhi's Bakery - highly recommended

We got to meet the student teams from Qld, Tassie, and South Australia and out first view of the coveted prize was at the airport with the Tasmanians proudly displaying the trophy they had won in the previous year. Sarah and I vowed then and there to take from them.

Keep your eye on the prize

We camped at the Hash House that night, ready for our early start as the maps of the course were to be given out at 8am - four hours before the start of the event. With four hours to prepare Sarah and I plopped down next the our arch enemies from Tasmania (Andy, Ed and Cam or as we dubbed them 'Black Ninjas and the Rainbow Warrior') to plot out a course that would bring us home the silverware.

The uni teams - the black ninjas are back row far left and front row centre. The Rainbow Warrior is back row third from the right (in the puffy vest)

We had decided early on that our main rivals were going to be the team from Tassie and after we had both finished prepping our maps we compared routes choices. They were fairly similar but we deigned to cover about 15kms more to pick up a few extra checkpoints. Time would tell if we could keep to our ambitions plan.

A tent on the course all by its lonesome

At 12 noon the starters horn blared and Sarah and took off running, much to the surprise of the other teams. The event course was quite a bit different to ACT. WA is very flat so Sarah found most of the technical controls while I picked up some new skills and knowledge while tagging along. By the time night fell I had a fair understanding of how to recognise the main features, but at night its a whole new story. In the dark we had to rely heavily on accurately following compass bearings and counting our paces.

Something to warm the night up and make the pain go away.

With night came the rain, and it quickly got cold and wet as well as limiting visibility even further. At about 11pm we ran into the Tassie team, which was pretty exciting. By this stage we knew we had ore points then them (we had traveled further and picked up more points), but we had to stay on our A game if were to win. The rest of the night went really well, we stopped by a water stop at midnight and found a bottle of port so we indulged. Sleep deprivation kicked in at about 4am and Sarah and I really struggled for the next four or five hours (until about 9am). At one point we were separated for about 15 mins in dense bush - it was very hard to find each other again. We finished strongly though, with me taking over the rains for a couple of controls (I can find the simple ones). We ended back at the Hash House at 12:52 - 8 minutes before the event finished.

A dog joined us for breakfast on Friday morning in Fremantle

Upon returning we were greeted by the news the the Rainbow Warrior (our nickname for Cam due to his rainbow coloured thermal top) had struggled in the wee hours of the morning and the team had to call it quits before sun up. This was both exciting and a little sad. The Tassie team were the only team that we believed could have challenged us and it was disappointing for them not to have done as well as expected. On the other hand we also meant we had probably won out category - and win we did. In the end we were 800 pts clear of the second placed team (UTS) with the Tassies coming third.

Celebrating the last control before home and nap time - 23 hours and 3o mins in the race

However, just like in the ACT champs the accolades weren't over yet. We also managed to be the first placed mixed team and we finished 5th overall, which isn't a shabby effort for what we though was a bungled run!

This brings our total haul for 2011 Australian university champions, ACT champions, and West Australian Mixed champions. Not too bad for my third ever rogaine (although Sarah does 98% of the navigation - I just supply the witty banter).

Sarah and I with our many WA trophies.
The smart people would have recognised that the photo of the trophy was taken in my room, thus ruining the suspense

Summer Journeys - Adelaide

2011-08-07T19:41:00.000-07:00

Adelaide was an absolute blast. Michelle's cousin was (and presumably still is) hilarious and he has an accent that was mutated into some weird Irish twang (I assume due to his exposure to South Australians).

Michelle and Geoff

We spent most of our time finding new places to drink beer. We drank beer in the city, we drank beer at home and we drank beer at the beach. It was a really good couple of days rest and I would have loved to have stayed for another day but I had to be back in Canberra for work.

My beer and I

I also distinctly remember searching the city for a 'Noodle Box' on a Sunday (any place that resembles Noodle Choice in Dickson). Finally we had to settle for Wok in a Box, which is a terrible, terrible subsitute. We ate it overlooking the Torrens River and Adelaide Oval behind the Conference Centre - the vista nearly made up for the food.

More beer plus a purse, which is used to hold items that can be exchanged for beer

We visited Glenelg the next day because it had been over 24hours since seeing the ocean. Geoff joined us and we listened to some live music played by a bloke who looked suspiciously like Ash (I also made phallic symbols).

For those of you who do not know Ash he looks like this. He also can play the guitar.

Summer Journeys - Road to Adelaide

2011-08-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

This leg of the trip was filled with highs and lows. Examples of a high is stopping in Mt Gambier an experiencing extreme blueness or visiting Kingston SE. An example of a low is the 145km of nothingness between Kingston and Meningie.

I get a little excited about state borders

We left Nelson fairly early on New Years Day. Michelle, ever the geologist, was very excited about witnessing the crater and blue lake. I will not lie, it actually was quite amazing and very, very blue.

Following some advice from a local Michelle and I stopped by the local motorbike races. We watched a couple of laps and left a little disappointed.
We continued up the Princes Highway stopping in Robe and Kingston SE (I think the SE stands for South East - if anyone knows please leave a comment). Robe has both an interesting name and an entry in Lonely Planet - but it seemed like a fairly boring place. We had lunch there - I think it was an amazing pizza.

Michelle locates us on the local map at Kingston SE

Kingston, on the other hand, was great. There was a stone menagerie, a giant lobster, random tiles, weather predicting rocks, and even a sun dial!After Kingston was a crapload of nothing. The road was straight and empty; we couldn't see the beach. Every now and then we would pull over to look at rock stacks (as directed by little roadsigns with cameras).

Only some people will get this joke (also in Kingston)

Suprisingly these were often better than the ones on the Great Ocean Road (ie the twelve apostles), just without the marketing of Victoria.

There was a little bit of excitement when we came across humourously named places such as Chinamen's Wells and Policemans Point (there were neither chinamen or policemen), but two chuckles didn't really liven up the hour and a half on the road.

The Kingston sundial

By the time we got to Meningie it was getting late in the evening, but Michelle and stopped to stretch our legs and do a bit of exercise at the local playground. Then we pushed on to the Mighty Murray.

The Murray, which will be a feature of a future blog post, had me ecstatically excited.

This was our first sighting - there will be many, many more

We stopped off in Tailem Bend, named after the sharp bend in the Murray. It has some history with trains I think, as there was a locomotive near the entrance to the town.After a brief rest we completed the final 100kms to Michelle's cousins house (Geoff - more on him later), where we ate a pasta feast, drank home brew and slept.

For those of you who ride motorbikes observe the angle of the 'bag rack' in the shadow.
I kept an eye on it all the way from Torquay and I am 110% surprised it didn't snap off.

Night of the pie

2011-08-02T00:41:00.000-07:00

There's is something about Georgia's outrageousness that is somewhat contagious, and so if you you knew her you would clearly understand how the following scenario panned out. Whilst we were enjoying an episode of masterchef (I think as a guy I'm not supposed to admit to liking this particular program, but its awesomeness knows no bounds) we started discussing pie.
The conversation quickly degenerated into a yelling match over which pie was best with the end result being a night of pie. That is three courses; all pie.

Three courses of pie all in an oven

Knowing our culinary skills were not complete without ElleBro we coerced her to join the pie team by explaining the benefits of the idea (you get to eat pie all night).

Entrée and main cooking side by side

Then we set out to construct our dream meal.

The beer bottles were an intricate part of our preparation - they were used to roll the pastry. They were also empty before we started.

The entrée was a sage, leek, and goat's cheese tart - an idea stolen from the Masterchef website. It was not only delicious but allowed me to feel cultured and aloof from the everyday riffraff (because I was eating goat's cheese).

I'm not sure what looks better, the tarts or Georgia photography

The main was difficult to decide - meat pie is tasty because it provides a great excuse to eat equal amounts of tomato sauce as dinner without insulting the chef. Chicken pie is tasty because it has chicken. However, the final decision was to make a beef and guiness stew, and then throw it into a pie. This resulted in some of the best cooked potato and beef I've ever had. It also tasted like Guinness. The best part about this dish was that to eat it all we pretty much needed spoons to finish up the stew sauce.

I was a little bit excited about this experiment.

Dessert was apple pie. Hilarious because something went wrong with actually making the pie dough, so we turned it into biscuit towers (everything tastes better if it's in tower form). The best part of this dish wasn't that I got to eat the remaining stewed apples, but that my room has smelt of apples and cinnamon ever since!

Apple Biscuit Towers

The evening was finished off by drinking truly terrible wine, eating a citrus salad (that's a masterchef joke - if you were cool you would understand) and watching Black Books.

Elle and Georgia ready for dinner.

Summer Journeys - The Great Ocean Road

2011-07-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

The Great Ocean Road was a magnificent leg of the trip. Michelle and I competed it in two parts. the first day we left all our luggage in Torquay and traveled through to Port Campbell and watched a motorcyclist nearly die.

At a deserted beach

In the second part we followed the Princes Highway to Port Campbell, completed the Great Ocean Road, nearly died, and than rode to Nelson (near the SA border) to celebrate New Years Eve.

Small kids with big ideas - they know how to enjoy camping

The traffic was a bit thick, but the scenery made up for it. We were either following the coastline or winding our way through forested national parks.

Bushwalking action shot

It was in a national park that some fool on a motorbike attempted to overtake a whole line of cars, only to have some vehicles round a corner traveling in the opposite direction. The oncoming vehicles had to swerve off the road to avoid a collision.

Not all motorists are as lucky ......this is a speed deterrent at Port Campbell

We stopped in Lorne for Brekkie, and then went bushwalking to Cumberland Falls (advice I received from a store owner in Cann River.

Michelle points out Cumberland falls

Lunch was at a picturesque pub in Apollo Bay followed by a pretty average dinner in Port Campbell.

Lunch at Apollo Bay (Day 1)

After a days rest in Torquay we loaded up the bike and finished our sightseeing on the Great Ocean Road.

The Razorback

At the twelve apostles I was amazed to see someone who was a splitting image of an acquaintance of mine, and than astounded when ten minutes later it turned out to actually be Camilla from Canberra.

Some of the twelve apostles

After leaving the GOR Michelle and I were greeted by stupendously high and erratic winds. The buffeting wind wold blow the entire bike across the road and for half an hour my sole goal was not to crash.

The Grotto

Ten minutes before Warrnambool whilst on a bridge crossing a river the wind suddenly changed direction (again), sending us careening towards the railing of the bridge.

The Lock Ard Gorge

For the second time in ten years of riding I saw a life ending crash, but thankfully I was able to regain control moments before impact.

Gratuitous tourist photo

We stopped for a poor lunch to celebrate life in Warrnambool.
During the final leg of the journey Michelle and I stopped in Port Fairy, an absolutely lovely little town. We stopped by a pub and visited the beach. Unfortunately there wasn't any accommodation left so we pushed on to Nelson.

A beach (at Apollo Bay though)

We found a small caravan park where we set up my hootchie buy tying it to my bike. The other guests were absolutely amazed that we would sleep in something that offered such little protection (they all had massive caravans and tents). It was New Years Eve, so Michelle and I went to the pub across the road for dinner and a bunch of beers. We retired to our humble 'tent' just after midnight.

A spectacular photo that sums up the entire trip

Fremantle Conference

2011-07-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

Fenner Hall, being the fine establishment that it is, sent me to Fremantle at the beginning of July to learn how to improve the first year experience in higher education. As far as conferences go it was okay, but the real bonus was being able to catch up with old Fenner friends who have moved to the large state of WA.

Fremantle in 2D form

On my first night Simon and I met up in a pub, sampled a couple of paddles of their (tasty) beer, before retiring to his place. We then plugged in his old playstation and indulged in the original Time Crisis.

Paddles of what was once beer

I saw the sights of Fremantle on the Wendesday and Friday. I went for a short run along the coast - heading south - passing places such as the Round House, the Little Creatures Brewery, and the Fremantle Beach.

On Friday I visited the Shipwreck museum

Part of a restored ship

A cannon - I think I could find a use for this in the Fenner Carparks

and went on the Fremantle Prison 'Ghost Tour', which was surprisingly good, and in all honesty gave me the best ideas to implement back at Fenner (a gun tower maybe).

Whipping post for 'post' Thursday night antics

The gallows - set up on the roof of Fenner for extra excitement

Saturday brought Jeremy up to Fremantle and we joined forces with the meager Gold Coast fans to support the Suns in their endeavour to defeat the Fremantle Dockers in Perth. It was Pavlich's 250th game to which added to the occassion.

A ball up at the Sun's attacking end

This was followed by dinner and a bucket load of beers with Sim at the Little Creatures Brewery.

Little Creatures Brewery from the outside

Little Creatures Brewery from the inside - Sim and Jeremy sharing a few obnoxiously loud ones with me.

It was with a heavy heart (and throbbing head) I had to leave behind footy and this fabulous tasting mango beer and return to Canberra.

Summer Journeys - Torquay

2011-07-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

So, I’m in Melbourne with as motorbike and a grand scheme to travel the 850km or so to Adelaide with Michelle via the Great Ocean Road. It was a pretty simple plan with some minor difficulties, they being sports bike, passenger, luggage, Lorne Festival, and weather (that final comment will make sense later).

Michelle, or, as her T-shirt states - SuperWoman

The luggage problem was solved with multiple occy straps and the rest with sheer minded doggedness . I am always nervy riding around bigger cities because a) lots of traffic makes is unsettling in a strange place, and b) I don’t have any street directories for them and getting lost is easy. So Michelle and I wobbled off from my brother’s house on the 28^th of January heading towards out first destination: Torquay.

One gearsac, one hiking bag, 1 sleeping bag, 1 sleeping mat, 2 backpacks, 4 occy straps, 3000 kms

I giggled at the amount of traffic heading in the opposite direction for the cricket, but this humour was short lived as I took a wrong turn and immediately found myself stuck in said traffic. I swore multiple times whilst sweating in high heat in the traffic.

A beach at Torquay (not Bell's)

We were in traffic for the next 107km because of the Lorne festival and because the Great Ocean Road and Christmas a synonymous for the majority of the population of Melbourne.

Kleemo and I in our natural habitat performing an ancient meeting ritual

3-4 hours later we pull into Torquay stopping at Kleemo's humble abode, which we made the base of our operations for the Great Ocean Road. I was great catching up with old mate again and we got up to our usual tricks. We drank copious amounts of alcohol, played copious amounts of pool - I even won the first couple of games before Kleemo got his eye in (I lost the next million).

The intense concentration speaks volumes of the importance of this game

Kleemo surfed, I ran, and Michelle sun baked (literally). In between doing all this we feasted at Australia's best Coffee Club and scoffed amazing amounts of Gelato. Only once did I mention I'm friends with Layne Beachley's sister.

Also, what is a trip to visit Kleemo if you don't get to see your name written in pee!

Welcome to Australia!

Summer Journeys - Melbourne

2011-06-13T00:24:00.000-07:00

There is not too much to say about this part of my summer holiday. I stayed with my brother for Christmas and we did our usual things got drunk, watched the Boxing Day Test, etc.

My first Ashes Test! Katich and Watson played well...2 out fo 11 isn't too bad.

I got to see Ruby and Cooper for an afternoon before they were whisked away to stay with their maternal grandmother in Newcastle.

Drinking beer, a usual Melbourne day

There was one intriguing aspect to the visit though. Due to multiple unexpected victories in an annual 8-ball tournament I had to return to Canberra for one night so as to play in the ACT champion of champions Grand Final (we lost to a 1st division team). I chose to fly up to Canberra, play in the tournament and then fly back the next day.

A street band in Melbourne

Lucas and I decided that instead of spending money on a taxi ($50 each way) or him driving me and picking me up (1 hour of hassle) I should ride my motorbike to the airport, leave it in the overnight parking and pick it up the next day.

My bike at the airport. There is something hugely wrong with this picture - can you see what is is?

It costs $50 to leave a vehicle for 24 hours so that seemed like a good idea (they had security guards and cameras on the boom gates so riding around the gates wasn't an option). Did you spot what was wrong in the photo above? Don't worry, I''ll zoom in for you.

Luckliy for me, no one else spotted that either

Yeah, I realised my error just as the airplane was taking off and I spent a nerve wracking 24 hours praying that my bike would still be there the next day. Also when I first returned to the car park I went to the wrong level.

Look a those eyes, I'm been judged by my two year old neice.

While I believe I am super lucky to still have a motorbike I have since idiotically repeated this feat, only this time at Fenner. On this instance two guys saw the keys at about 9:00am and tried to start the bike but apparently they had been taking the same stupid pills as me and couldn't figure out how to get it started (I checked the security footage). Instead they returned the keys to the Front Office after turning the ignition to leave my parking lights on and draining my battery.

Cooper's look of incredulity when he heard I had done it again

The Computer that Phill Built: The background story

2011-05-31T20:09:00.000-07:00

Late one night (or maybe early one morning) I was sitting at my desk opening my laptop to do a little bit of work. My old trusty Toshiba, which had been left turned on for quite a while, was up to its old tricks again in that the screen remained black and would not respond to any stimuli from the keyboard, mouse pad, or the power button. Usually I would smile at its antics, turn off the power at the wall, unplug the battery, and then restart the machine. This time was different.
With a howl of rage I threw the infuriating beast against the wall, smashing it into a hundreds of pieces.

A computer in a thousand pieces

No not really, I swore once or twice and called Dan Rose, IT expert to ask his advice on how to build a bitchin computer'. The following is the result.

Me and my motherboard

It turns out that building of a computer is the exact opposite of building a bicycle. The actual building of the unit is fairly straightforward because everything is standardized, unlike a bike which requires quite a lot of practical and mechanical knowledge.

Briggs, Michael and I putting the computer together

However, the choice of components is extremely complicated. For the bike you decide what you need, how it fits on, find a brand you like and item purchased. For a computer you decide what you want, realise that there are two types, spin you head around the various numbers that get thrown at you, pick a model type and then realize that company that develops the technology doesn't make it. All of a sudden you find a hundred companies take the technology all with their own spin on what peripherals should be added, make a few different versions and then sell them off at a variety of prices that seem to make no sense. For the rank amateur such as myself it is stupendously overwhelming...but possible. And you learn a LOT!

Even professionals occasionally need help

After lots of consideration (I won't bore you with the details), this is what I bought:

Processor: AMD Phenom II 955 Black Edition
Memory: 2x2 GB Kingston HyperX RAM
Motherboard: Gigabyte 890GPA UD3H
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon 6870 OC
Power Supply: Corsair TX-650(v2)
Hard Drive: 1TB Samsung f3 spinpoint
CD ROM: LG GH22-NS50 (OEM)
Case: NZXT Guardian 921
Monitor: Samsung 23.6" B2440L
Mouse: Tte sports black gaming mouse
Keyboard: Logitech USB illuminated
Operating system: Windows 7 64 bit (OEM)

including postage it cost $1385.69. There is a further $95 added to that for my logitech Z523 2.1 sound system, but I am waiting on it to be repaired as it arrived broken.

This is the inside of the case after everything had been installed

After the bits and pieces arrived I gathered the most technically savvy people I knew and we got to work. After about 2 1/2 hours of humorous antics and it was finally ready for a test run.

Turning it on for the first time

I am super satisfied with the results, and personally I think I have the prettiest computer in Fenner - which was my original intention the while time.

I'm all about pretty!

Summer Journeys - Bombala to Melbourne

2011-05-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

Entering Victoria - a crucial part of any trip to Melbourne

Day 2 dawned bright and cold. I attached my wet clothes to the bike bag for drying and set off down the Monaro towards the south coast of Australia.
The road and scenery were amazing all the way to Cann River.

I went for a bushwalk along the Genoa River in Coopracambra National park looking for a waterfall

Just before reaching Cann River I came across Australia's oldest school, located in the tiny village of Noorinbee.

I followed the coast to Nowa Nowa and then meandered through country Victoria, passing though towns such as Bruthen, Glenaladale, and Maffra.

The Lindenow pub - good lunch and great people

It rained intermittently the entire time. If I had my clothes out it would start to drizzle. When I put them away the sun would peep through the clouds.

A brewing storm

The section from Nowa Nowa to Bruthen was particularly dangerous. Rain bucketed from the skies, obscuring my vision.

The serviceman's monument at Lindenow

I spent most of the time following the tail lights of the semi in front of me. Coming into Maffra I witnessed a spectacular accident that left two cars totalled. Luckily no one was hurt.

There was also a dog in the tray of the back truck. Poor thing never stopped shaking.

From Maffra I headed south towards Stradbroke and then cut west towards Gormandale and Mirboo North on some pretty dodgy roads. I stopped off at the Grand Ridge Brewery in Mirboo North and quick game of the original Time Crisis (my favourite) before striking out to Leongatha and the Gippsland Highway. This leg was made a wee more interesting by the constructs of a witty farmer.I saw the punchline first and actually rode for ages looking for the set up before I realised they might both be on the same row of bales

I made the final leg of the journey into Melbourne along the Gippsland Highway and then Princes Highway. I had an awesome pizza for dinner but I cannot remember where it was (probably Leongatha). Once again the stupendously heavy rains hit as I came into Melbourne in the evening, reducing my visibility to dangerously low levels but I made it in fairly safe and somewhat damp.

A powerplant I passed on the way. These things a MASSIVE. I also can't remember which town it was attached too. Koo Wee Rup perhaps?

It was a good trip, marred a little by the rain as I was keen to travel along the Grand Ridge Road – supposedly a great trail. However I was a bit concerned at its reliability in the wet so I gave it a miss this time around. There’s always next year!.

Third time - and it was lucky

2011-05-23T19:12:00.000-07:00

For the third year running Fenner Hall has won the interhall pool competition. Unlike last year, which was a decidly one sided affair, this year we had to earn our top spot. Each hall or college put forward four players ranked 1-4. Each player than played a single game against all others within their teir. This year I managed to only win 5 of my 7 games (2nd in the top teir), with the top ranked player from Johns taking the top honours of winning 6 from his 7. At the end of the afternoon Fenner Hall and B&G tied for first place and so a decider was played. A single game between one member from each Hall. I was a little surprised to see that B&G put in their 2nd teir player. It turns out they had stacked their 2nd divisions with their best player. Unfortunately the final game was marred by slight controversy. After breaking and potting a ball Keith (the B&G player) failed to nominate a colour before shooting, thus fouling and giving me two visits. He claimed not to know the rule (not my problem) and the B&G spectators thought I was being pedantic. From there I was always in control (even though Keith is a really good player). I was able to win without taking any chances except on my final shot in which I gently massèd the cueball around a coloured ball to pot the black.

The unbroken line shows the straight path of the cueball would not strike the black.
The dashed line shows the path I sent the cueball on to win the game.

Too many thorns!

2011-05-16T05:42:00.001-07:00

Recently I received an email informing me of a $1500 sponsored trip to Perth. To earn this cash all I had to do was be in the top placed student team in the upcoming ACT rogaining championship. We would then have to enter the national university rogaining championship held in conjunction with the WA state champs. Never one to pass up honour and glory (and a bit if cash) I quickly snaffled the services of fellow Fenner Hall IB navigator Miss Sarah Buckerfied, orienteer extraordinaire.

Sarah and I pick up 100 points on the top of Pig Hill

We had somewhat unorthodox preparation techniques. I trained by running a total of 9 kms over three training session before deciding my ankle (pre IB injury) was still to sore to run on and I decided to eat Maccas instead of training. Sarah, prepped by rolling her own ankle and limping around for the four days before the race.

A vehicle found on the course. Double points were earned if you pulled it to another checkpoint

This year the event was held just north of Tinbinbilla in the Brindabella National Park. It was a sunny day, but relatively cold. After planning an exciting route that looked about 60 kms long we set off on our journey. From 12pm until dusk we covered just under 30kms and picked up 990 points, mostly from checkpoints hidden in dense bush that would be too hard to find at night.

A giant sling shot was also available for teams willing to risk life and limb to reach the other side of the course

Our first three checkpoints after the sun set did not go as planned. We missed one and wasted a lot of time bashing around the bush trying to find the other two. However, after that we had a string of good luck finding controls hidden in very thick bush. At night in dense bush visibility is extremely limited even with powerful torches and I spent most of the time ripping through brambles and tripping over roots and rocks. By 4:00am the temperature had dropped to about seven below zero and our energies levels started to wan along with the batteries powering my torch. Just before the sun rose we were greeted by the astronomical phenomenon of the aligned planets which greatly bouyed our spirits. By the time the sun had risen we had secured a further 1340 points.

A shot of Tinker's Creek. This was about 9:30am on our way to our second last control

At 8am we stopped by the Hash House for cheese toasted sandwiches, a change of shoes and socks, and a toilet break. We deviated slightly from out original plan, but spent the final four hours picking controls in open farmland finding another 500 and multiple electrified fences. We strode back to the finish at 11:30am finishing at the same time as the rival Ursies team with a total of 2830 points.

The last control for us: Sarah and I had a quick bite to eat before heading back.

The student teams all regaled each other with the tales of their journeys as we eagerly awaited the results. Sarah and I were excited to find we had won the mixed team category and we also managed to be the highest placed student team (Perth here we come!). However, it was a huge surprise when we found out we were leaving the Brindies as the 2011 ACT rogaining champions.

2011 ACT rogaining champions

Summer Journeys - Canberra to Bombala

2011-05-12T05:40:00.001-07:00

I have finally found my way back to the blog. It has been a couple of long hard months. The next few passages will detail the exciting times I have had. I promise to leave out the boring bits.

With a chain this dirty it has to be exciting!

About a week before Christmas it was time for my annual pilgrimage to any city that has family. This year I decided on Melbourne, so I picked the most dreary day I could, jumped on the ol' Suzuki and headed off into the stormy weather.

Don't be fooled by the blue skies, it is just a cruel facade.

I travelled about two blocks and fueled up in my summer jacket with summer gloves before opening the throttle any blasting back to Fenner. I prudently changed gloves and then headed off through the mountains.

A sneaky break on Bobyon Rd

It was an interesting day to ride. I left Canberra in a torrential downpour heading south towards Bobyon rd. By the time I hit the dirt it was bright and sunny. Clouds slowly rolled towards me and I was soon speeding in the vain hope of making bitumen before the rain hit again.

Shannon's Flat, IB route from 2010

A took a break in Adaminaby where I changed into by thermals and chatted routes with some fellow motorcyclists. I overheard the rude bastards disparaging my route choice. These highway tourists couldn't understand the idea of riding to see the countryside.

Lovely countryside (this may or may not be parkland in Bombala)

From Adaminby I took the winding Snowy Mountain Hwy through Cooma heading towards the South East Forests National Park. I stopped briefly in Wyndham for a beer and to watch some cricket before snaking my way to Bombala.

A must visit pub in Bombala

I stopped off in Bombala for Dinner and a quiet drink. After a few too many I realised I would not be able to safely reach my camping destination so at the suggestion of the publican I settled down for the night in the middle of the town. Murphy* stopped by to visit as I prepared to set up my hootchie. Sure enough in the pitch black my torch decided to stop working. Finally I tucked in for a comfy sleep after a second dinner and an ice cold beer.

*Murphy's Law - and this is what it looks like. Without a camera flash it is slightly more Murphy-like. The campsite in daylight

Student Life

2011-02-02T17:19:00.001-08:00

Just passed Torsten in the hallowed halls of the Research School of Chemistry, ANU. He grinned and commented "its a tough life". We high fived and went on our separate journeys.

Also, our first game of 8-ball in Div 3 was last night. We drew with the other team and I only won 1 out of my 3 games, but the two I lost we winnable. This may not be as big a jump as I thought!

It has begun...

2011-01-24T17:09:00.000-08:00

Facebook does have a use!

Canberra Summer

2011-01-23T03:39:00.000-08:00

I have recently returned from a 4000km motorbike trip, which will shortly be published, but while I sort through the multitude of photos here are some photos of Canberra in the summer.
We've had a lot of rain, like the enitre east side of Australia. For the first time in 1o years the dams are at 100%. Early in summer Michelle and I ventured to the roof of Fenner to watch a storm brew before sunset.

The storm is brewing to the right (North)

Sunset looking west towards Black Mountain

I have also spent some time cycling around the city. Below are a couple of photos of the Lake Burley Griffin.

The sun reflecting off the water

A boat full of party goers

Tim Got Married!!!!!

2010-12-16T03:10:00.000-08:00

On a wonderful Saturday a few weeks ago my good friend Timmy married Miriam. This particular wedding was super exciting as all the Circus freaks from around Australia came together to celebrate. Unfortunately Chris couldn't make it over from the States, but we found ways to compensate.

When the circus is in town weird shit happens - witness the antiphoto. Although not planned everyone has somehow managed to look unphotogenic. Even the groom is wearin an expression usually associated with sociopaths

Its turns out the best remedy is to focuse on another.

The ceremony was held in in Sutton and the sun found time in its busy schedule to make an appearance, which for 2010 is pretty amazing. Tim strode down from the pub accompanied by his Best Man, father and a marching bagpipe player.

Tim marching down the road to the melodious belch of the bagpipes.

Not to be outdone, Miriam joined the grinning groom to a blood pumping drum beat.

The vows

Soon after the guests could be found knocking back a few drinks to combat the heat, and it wasn't long until everyone retired inside. We drank, we ate, we danced and we were merry.

Dancing and merriness

The next day we all met up again for a BBQ. Once again the circus crew got together made plans for out next adventure, lamenting over the missing member - when, from over the horizan, Chris peddles up in true Lauf fashion.

This is another example of weird shit happening when we get together

Upon closer inspection Chris hadn't actually travelled halfway across the world in less than 12 hours to make an amazing entrance, but it was an almighty coincidence.

Spot the difference!

RSC Christmas Party

2010-12-09T21:23:00.000-08:00

On Thursday afternoon the Research School of Chemistry celebrated Christmas by getting the majority of staff and research students hopelessly drunk.

Chemists drinking beer - its so cliche

It was strange not having Pinko and Jen around to join in on the festivities but I still managed to enjoy myself. Much of the afternoon was spent lamenting the state of the Aussie cricket with Pat and Mikey from the Humphrey group and playing soccer on the stupendously slippery grass.

Torsten, Mikey, and Pat - the 'Humphries'

For a while I refused to run because I didn;t want to break into a sweat, but near the end it was just myself and Titou against the rest so I stepped up a gear and we ripped apart the opposition with our sheer brilliance. We both spent a lot of time in the mud.

Most of the ground was covered in puddles, and a good tactic was to kick lots of water at the defender and then run around them as they laughed at their predicament

Afterwards I challenged Tom to a game of chess. At first we started sledging each other but soon it became serious. At one stage I was two moves from a brilliant checkmate but Tom smelled something fishy and played some radical moves. Unfortunatly soon afetr the demise of my queen to a sneaky Knight spelled disaster for my army and I was resoundly beaten.

Tom, the drunken Chess master

A few of us ventured to the uni pub for dinner and to bitch and moan about undergrads students. After this Jeremy, Ian and I took to the pool tables, defeating whosoever dared to play us.

Steve and Adam - Adam's sparkley beard was blindingly delightful

From here we parted ways and I headed to the only payphones in town to call a friend of mine, Alex Haller, who was in Canberra for a conference. Despite my best efforts I couldn't get a hold of him, and then low and behold as I walked past O'Malley's there he was on his phone trying to call me back. We shared many a merry pint (and a jug) with each other, Luke Broadhurst (an ex-ressie of Fenner), and some other scientists in town for the conference too.

Myself, Alex and Luke - reunited at last

All the Guiness I had lubricated my sense of humour to just the right level until one of the girls asked if I was a comedian. I explained I also was a research scientist but that I also had a part time job, to which she immediately responded 'as a comdeian?'(bless her soul).

Lamenting the fact the Alex's is begger than mine

Unfortunately this put a lot of pressure on me to be more funny so I stopped talking for at least 5 minutes. The night ended with Alex and I promising to ride our motorcycles across Australia at some point next year.

My early attempts at being artistic

A night out on the grog

2010-12-07T18:08:00.000-08:00

It's not very often I go out on a Thursday night, but at this time my research required me to keep weird hours and I had to be up at 2:00am. There were two ways I could keep myself occupied: twiddling my thumbs or smashing cocktails and beer. I opted for the latter.

The latter option also allowed me to make phallic symbols in public places

Grimesy, Joe, Dan, Satomi, Beachley, Bec, and Michelle joined me in this expedition and we traipsed down to Kremlin where we met Clarkey and Su Lin.

When good undergrads turn bad

After spending bucketloads of cash we sauntered over to Mesh and bumbed into Mr Liu. We busted a groove for a while, attempted to steal some grog, and made witty banter.

No one was more surprised than us to find that this unmanned bar grog fridge was locked.

Afterwards we retired to the Cigar lounge of O'Malleys.

Joe poses for all the ladies, unfurtunately none wanted to draw him naked.

By this stage it was coming onto two O'clock so Bec and I returned to Fenner and I actually completed the work I had to do.

No one notices as Dan has a fit on the dancefloor

A sneaky day off

2010-12-07T17:50:00.000-08:00

I took a sneaky (not so sneaky now its published) day off uni with Michelle to celebrate the completion of a conference poster and reveiw article I wrote.

A Michelle in Canberra

Michelle and I enjoyed a beer in the Uni House beer garden before meandering into town to enjoy more beers/cider and watch the cricket at the Canberra Club and the Australian.

We ran into Tristan in town. It was very exciting.

Slightly tipsy we returned home just in time to receive and accept an invitation to go to Broad Burger - a caravan by the lake that sells burgers.

Swans get angry when you take photos of them (also when you through rocks at their babies)

You can thank me later for this!

2010-10-27T05:25:00.000-07:00

Good ideas, Great times!

2010-10-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

First you need some variety of tinned drink. Most of us chose beer, although there was a couple of ruskis and the DW brought along soft drink.

in a bold move we also supplied nibbles to help us poor wrokers through the tough times

Step two is helmets (pictured). We chose fire helmets because they:

a) are brightly coloured,

b) protect your head in case of an accidental tumble, and

c) are inherently awesome.

A box of helmets was conveniently found in my room

Third, stubby holders for holdin aforementioned cans of drink, and fourthly straws and packing tape.

The mouth of a happy man is filled with beer - ancient egyption proverb circa 2000 BC

Highly recommended are friends and engineering degrees.

This is a two in one package - a friend who moonlights as an engineer

Decorations can also be added to give your helmet individual flair as proudly shown by Matt

There were some issues in stopping the flow once started. This made it somewhat difficult for the Duty Warden to effectively answer emergency phone calls.

Georgia fields a phone call about missing fire helmets

No people were harmed in the making of these phenonmenal and fashioable headwear.

Planning is also not essential

Are the Bombers doomed again?

2010-09-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

Essendon have named their new coach - James Hird. While I respect the bloke as a player and he is super knowledgeable about the game I do wonder why Bombers have appointed an inexperienced senior coach for the second consecutive time. Especially given Hird has had extremely limited coaching experience. There is talk of hiring a ex-senior coach for an assistants position (Bomber Thompson's name has been bandied around), but will that be enough to mentor the new coach to his role?

The races

2010-09-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

Andrew 'Goofy' Bryen enjoyed the distinct pleasure of turning 30 recently and we celebrated in spectacular fashion.

Six Canberra kids.

I'm not sure whose idea it was, but it was a work of brilliance - seven friends from Canberra and one from Sydney traveled the dusty roads to West Wyalong so we could attend the world renown Caragabal Sheep Races (which involved slightly further traveling on slightly dustier roads).

The event was nothing short of amazing, there was a jumping castle, there was a merry-go-round, there were SHEEP, and sheep being chased by kids. We placed bets, we drank beer, and we bought a sheep for the finals (I think it came in last).

Sheep are funny races - they run about half the track and then stop dead.

Yep, this is halfway through the race.
If your sheep wasn't winning you could scare them to a standstill and hopr for a change of fortune

They look around trying to figure out what is going on around them, and the kids scare them into finishing the race. They also jump a lot. Oh yeah, kids are released to scare the sheep back into movement. After the races we retired back to the 'Goof' residence for an bountiful feast that involved pig, sheep, cow, various salads, bread and more. This was followed by a plethora of desserts including multiple cakes, fruit salad, chocolate, toffee, and other sweet things I cannot name.As usual Goofy, Peachy, and I found the pub and we played Buck Hunter. It turns out I am not the 'Great White Hunter' I was hoping.

The sheep cake made by Amanda! Somewhat amazing.

Until next year Caragabal, we will miss you.

The first of many

2010-09-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

Its that stage of life, my friends are starting families while I'm still bumming around at uni.

The first of many to come arrived about six weeks ago!

Aren't those gloves adorable - they stop him from clawing his eyes out!

Welcome to the Sprightly Dugong Owen - you can now join the special few under 1yos that make it to this exclusive website. Owen is the son of Simon and Brooke, from all accounts he has ten fingers and toes - which is about as much information most males need about kids (I assume he was weighed and stuff but that all means nothing to me). Like most people his age Owen's hobbies include sleeping, pooping, and eating. I am yet to here him give a full throated yell, but there will be time for that later.

Adelaide Zoo

2010-09-14T05:23:00.000-07:00

Whilst in Adelaide I decided to visit the zoo and see what amazing specimans of animals that are not human were on offer. There were some exciting, and not so exciting times...

Don't be fooled, this was an exciting. The giant turtle may look and move like the rock behind it, but they do live up to their title

All in all it was a bit depressing see how small some of the enclosures were. Larger animals like the lion and giraffes did not have too much space.

These guys were hilarious, at least they had space to monkey around

(not quite as subtle as my inception pun)

A few of the exciting animals are also very lazy and spent too much time sleeping. The so called 'dangerous' animals failed to strike terror, fear, or even anxiety in me. Once again John Cleese has lied to me through comedy.

At least this bloke was awake - the poison arrow frogs (circled) are dangerous in the same way

that playing with fire whilst coated in petrol is dangerous -don't touch.

There some exciting times - I came across my favourite frog (I've never seen one before) and I also saw a snake in the middle of meal (actually I could see the meal in the middle of the snake)

Holy shit, this snake is eating a mouse!

Yeah, this snake was the coolest thing I saw. I watched it for about ten minutes until I too started to get hungry.

Unlike certain animated films lemurs do not dance and sing,

and throwing coins at them just made them agitated...

The zoo had a huge number of animals, but the small cages dampened my excitement a little. The wildlife park was much better, but I do not think many patrons would attend a zoo in which you roamed with the animals. I've read way too much about the ambushing tactics of lions to trust a sleeping one.

I'm also sure meerkats would hunt in packs, sneaky bastards.

ICCC39 - When too much chemistry is not enough.

2010-09-05T04:23:00.001-07:00

At the end of July I attended my first chemistry conference. It was in Adelaide and Chemists from all over the world dropped by to introduce the latest research the international academic community. For those of you who have never been to a conference before, the day is filled with talks of approx 20 mins each outlining cutting edge research.

Cutting edge chemical research

The attendees who are not speaking are invited to supply an A0 poster portraying how they are making the world a better place through chemistry. Some of the world's preeminent scientist also give quite exciting hour long talks at the begininning of each day. All in all the day is very exciting for those who enjoy academia.

At the beach in Adelaide with fellow Phd chemists Karl (New Zealand) and Rashmi (Melbourne)

The nights, however, a very exciting for those who enjoy a tipple or two of water is on hand. Networking I think they call it...

Dan 'networking' with a pig. I bet this never happens in Adelaide

I met some awesome people from all around the world, but mostly I spent time with the Kiwis, Germans, and Polish contingent. However I did immensely enjoy confusing the Japanese by speaking to them in their own language.

Highlights include the following:

I had heard about Adelaides giant balls, but they had to be seen to be believed

Liam (Engalnd) and I emasculated by giant steel balls

I also visited the zoo and lions and tigers and bears (pandas!) oh my. I also saw a snake feeding

A real live panda bear that is not sleeping(apparently they sleep a lot)!

On the last day Tom (polish) and I went to the wildlife park. Due to the copious amount of alchol consumed on the previous night we missed the bus we had to catch to get there so we walked up a narrow windy road for about 7 kms to get the park (quite dangerous). The animals were all aussie natives. We unexpectedly ran into another groups of chemists who were not aussie nativesand I felt superior by knowing more than the others around me about the fauna. As I had to catch a plane that arvo, Tom and I walked back down, but this time through the national park using my awesome watch/wristtop computer to guide us back.

There are some Germans patting the Dingos, they did this for about 15 minutes

At the beginning of the trip involved sitting with the Kiwis playing cards and drinking beer just 5 minutes after I had met them. My watch's weather alarm starting going crazy and I mumbled off hand there was a storm coming. A quick glance outside showed a bright sunny day. Later that we exited the pub into a downpour. Everyone was very impressed!

Mike, Scott, Dan and Matt are are about to be very impressed

Five of us Aussies sneaking off the a pub on one night, followed by a small contingent of kiwis. People sent messages to friends and supervisors, and than wave after wave of chemits appeared at this quant little pub. The owner was so stoked he stayed open for us every night just waiting for us to come back. And go back we did.
The Dog and Duck (or was it the Duck and Dog). For one night we owned this place
An aussie meat stone grill. A stupendously hot piece of rock is brought out and a plate with uncooked meat. You put the meat on the grill and cook it. AWESOME

Raw awesomeness - about to be cooked

Thanks all for the good times and great memories.

Oh what a trip!

Is there such a thing as too much fun...

2010-08-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

After the long Saturday that was Open Day a few classy individuals retired to my humble abode for a tipple of wine...and scotch...and multiple varieties of vodka...and beer. Needless to say we stopped being classy fairly quickly.

Featured, one such classy individual

We played Dance Dance revolutionThen we dancedI think everybody made sweet love to Stubsy.And we made music
And finally to F5 I leave you with this.
we five men; drinking beer
no lives, no wives
all we do is drink drink drink

We would also apologise to all ground floor residents

Dela and Georgia offer peace to all those we annoyed on Saturday night

Hoodoo Gurus

2010-08-09T02:44:00.000-07:00

Friday was a day of ups and downs - Pinko submitted his Thesis (Good onj ya mate), the Hoodoo Gurus played live at the unibar for really cheap, and the Bombers suffered an epic 13 goal defeat at the hands of Carlton (thats a downer)...

Dave Faulkner hums a simple tune for his beloved fans

The band was awesome - musical gurus you could say - followed closely in awesomeness of Chicken Gourmet at 2am in the morning...

Highlights included not being able to hear properly for the next 24 hours, being hit on by a 40 year old woman after she demanded to know why I was at the concert (obviously I was too young for this scene), and the two extremely drunk wankers who pushed in front of us and proceeded to spill drinks on everyone and hug Micheal. This was actually kind of a lowlight but it was amusing to watch the plethora of fans tell them to leave the area using the diverse forms of the f-bomb.

Inception

2010-08-03T20:12:00.001-07:00

I thought I met my dream girl at the Belconnen cinema on Sunday whilst on my way to see Inception with Pinko, Jen, and Roberts. However, on closer inspection her personality seemed a little flat.

She was a good listener, but didn't really say all that much.

The Stats are in!

2010-07-11T22:58:00.000-07:00

You may remember a few months ago I was very excited at my 8-Ball team's Division 5 premiership. Well, recently the seasons stats have come in.

The stats are ordered in two ways overall games won, and % of games won.

Div 5 Ranking per games won

Players		Frames		Rankings	Ranking
Name	Won	Played	%age	Points
Mike Cairns	28	39	71.795%	53.846	1
Phil Gatt	26	35	74.286%	55.714	2
Robert Sansum	25	35	71.429%	53.571	3
Stuart Valentine	25	35	71.429%	53.571	4
Mark Lott	25	37	67.568%	50.676	5
Dominic Stinziani	25	40	62.500%	42.188	6

Div 5 Ranking per % of games won

Ranking	Players		Frames
	Name	Won	Played	%age
1	James Parker	4	4	100.000%
2	Phil Gatt	26	35	74.286%
3	Rob Page	24	33	72.727%
4	Mike Cairns	28	39	71.795%
5	Stuart Valentine	25	35	71.429%
6	Robert Sansum	25	35	71.429%

It turns out I came in a very healthy 2nd in both categories for Div 5 and the only reason I wasn't 1st in % of games won is because some choker played only 4 games He won them all and so he has a 100% win rate (he also won those game playing for our team). the table above shows the top six ranked players, marked in red are fellow Gringos - my team mates. Not surprisongly the majority of the others in the top 6 came from the team we defeated in the GF.

Pub Golf

2010-07-06T20:13:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I got my first taste of Pub Golf. An interesting game; you get a list of pubs each with a correspoonding drink (these represent the holes), and a 'par score'. This is how many sips (gulps is a more accurate term) one has to finish said drink.

Micheal and myself, I'm an unhappy golfer at the best of times.

So five sips for a pint if Guiness is a quick method of losing your way (and as it turns out a great way to start the night/lose large chunks of memory). Most 'competitors' dressed up in their favourite golfing attire and hit the town. The following photos remind me of where we went...

Louisa, Georgia and I at King O'Malleys. That was my first, but not my last, pint of guiness for the night

Here I'm with Kate at the Wigg and Penn

Georgia was quick on the draw, but I photo'd her back good and proper

Dan and Laura, I was supposed to be in the photo but the wicked witch decided she was more 'photogenic'

There's not much more to the night. We visited lots of places a lot of which I have hazy memories of. A t one stage I sang some Karaoke...

Mr Fenner

2010-06-09T23:23:00.000-07:00

An exciting annual event at Fenner Hall is Mr Fenner. In the fortnight leading up to the occasion all residents are able to make a 50c donation and nominate a male resident (all proceeds go to Beyond Blue).

Alex Patterson, my escort for the event, helps me prepare my fire juggling balls.

The 10 residents with the highest amount of nominations are invited to partake in a men's beauty pageant. This year I received a single nomonation, and due to the amount of ressies not keen to strut their stuff on stage I made the final cut.

Togs and Toga - you could iron a shirt in that stomach! This is extremely useful as I don't own an ironing board.

There are four categories and a talent. Afterwards the judges choose the five contestents for the final round, in which each finalist is asked two questions.

When I grow up.

This year the four categories were evening wear, when I grow up, togs or toga, and fantasy. Throughout the night the contestants wore everything from suits to leather outfits to trousers with with the butts cut out.

Fantasy category - I decided I want to be a woman. In reality everyone must have known I would put on a dress at some stage.

Talents were just as varied, some serenaded the crowds with ballads (or raps), cooking, and strip shows. I decided to call upon my skills as juggler and combine the with my fetish for fire for some 'extreme juggling'.

The not so extreme part of my extreme juggling!

It was an incredible night, I am happy to say I made the final five (I was one of only two to be unanimously voted in by the six judges).

Don't try this at home, I'm a well practiced amateur! My finale was a fireball in my bare hands. It amazed everyone and caused only minor burns to my sensitve skin

Kudos goes to this year's winner Ross McQuinn and thanks to those who helped out, be it my lovely escort Alex Patterson, my (drunken) advisor Michael Liu, and Dave and Jen who let me practice juggling fire in their backyard.

My eveningwear outfit, just before I was told I made the final five - Shaminda, next to me in the photo, was voted Mr Congeniality and was the only other contestant to have all judges pick him as a finalist.

Fenner Fight Club

2010-05-27T18:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes alcohol may get the better of your judgement, and you do some things that you will regret in the morning...and sometimes those ideas are totally awesome.

Here are some photos of Micheal, Alex and myself duking it out - welcome to the FFC

It started out as wrestling...

Alex and Michael playing at 'Judo'

but when we realised Alex was much stronger than both of us shit got real.

All too easily Alex drops me on my head

Joint locks took the place of grappling...

Micheal tries to dislocate Alex's shoulder

...and grabs turned to punches.

Here I am given the asian a lesson in Aussie Kung Fu!

There was a no holding back policy with punches to the gut

I threw up after this one

punches to the head

as well as kicks and knees to the face
The blows soon started to turn real nasty as the neck became involved...
...and choke slams became the norm

After being hoisted up, I was belted in the face a few times before Alex threw me to the ground like the rag doll I am

Of course, the true martial arts experience shone through.

The final lesson, a fly kick to the head.

Until next time, Fenner Fight Club says good night!

We are sooo much hotter than Charlie's Angels!

Please note; only one Phillip Gatt was injured during the making of this mocumentary

Take that ACTEBA!

2010-05-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

Last year, after finishing 2nd in Div 4 in the ACT 8-Ball league the administrators dropped our team to Division 5.

Last night the Southern Cross Gringos (that's us!) give a huge middle finger in return. After finishing a disappointing 3rd place in the league games we systematically moved through finals series losing once and winning three times to claim the major prize. The team we faced in the Grand Final (Dropped from Div 3 - these administrators are weird) were undefeated, often winning matches by more than 8 frames (that's a lot).
We turned the tables on them though; in a race to 13 we were leading 11-4, and then 12-5. A mid-order collapse that would make the English cricket team proud gave the opposition (known as the Defenstrators) a glimpse of victory as they were as close as 12 -10, before we clinched victory.
Not only do I get a trophy for the victory, but we earn a place back in Div 4, and we get to play in the 'Champion or Champions' tournament - a handicapped knockout tournament in which the winners of each division play off against each other.

Interhall Pool

2010-05-10T17:28:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Fenner held an 8-ball competition in order to select a team for the interhall competition. 10 players turned up and multiple games at the Maram in Wanniassa led to the selection of four elite players from around the world to represent Fenner Hall. The following Friday the four of us went to uni pub in a bid to retain the interhall pool championship, which we had shared with Ursula and UniLodge last year. Each Hall/College ranked their players one to four, and then played one game against their opposite number from the other colleges. Every player played six games, and each college played 24 games, and after the three hours of pool Fenner had proven its utter dominance in this event. Of a possible 24 wins Fenner walked away with 20. The next closest college was Burgmann with 14 wins. Playing in 1sts for my team I was undeafeted, and it inlcuded an epic battle against the Ursies' 1st player that attracted the attention of all participants. A ring of supporters had formed around the table by the 3rd shot that all watched with bated breath.

The photo may be grainy but our playing wasn't - Pete (played 4ths won 4/6), myself (played 1sts won 6/6, Sanchit (Indian import, played 3rds won 5/6), and Declan (English import, played 2nds won 5/6). In the middle the interhall pool trophy!

The Race

2010-05-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

I've been super busy, but finally I have been able to update the blog

About month ago four intrepid adventures set off towards Johns XXIII College for Inward Bound.

Div 1 preparing at Fenner, Justin and Tristanm, my scouts, are in the team shirts

A relatively experienced team we had two particapants who had previuosly run Div 1 before, one who had run div 4, and a new recruit. Jaws dropped when the other team saw our greenest member, Sarah, not many females run in the top division, and even fewer are navigate.

Preparing to be met by my adoring fans

At approximately 11am we removed our blindfolds in the Yaouk valley on Stewartfield Rd (although we didn't know that at the time). We were told the endpoint was a small town called Jerangle. My scouts reported nothing more than a few farmhouses in the area, which indicated we were 10kms from the nearest main road so quickly we packed up our gear and headed south.

The road to the finish, a prophetic sign perhaps.

Our amazing pace allowed us to catch two teams ahead of us, but we lost our position upon arriving at Bobeyan Rd where we stopped to locate out exact position and plot a course. Johns and Burgmann jogged past and that was the last team we saw for over nine hours.

Sharing stories at the end

We headed east along the road, and up around Shannon's flat heading for ford across the Murrumbidgee River just outside Brebo. There was a moment of panic when 4wd track we were looking for seemed further away than expected, but in reality the first 35km was realtivley easy to run and navigate.

The real reason we run - awesome breakfast

The next ten kms was the downfall of every team. After crossing Povey's Fire trail most were aiming to head east, but regrowth from the fires in 2008 made many of the paths very difficult to spot. Twice we briefly wandered off course and only my experience kept us on track. At one stage we saw head lamps way off in the distance, quite high up and very far south. Whoever they were, they were lost, the endpoint was not in that direction. We giggled.

The endpoint

Next Sarah led us on an epic bushbash but to our dismay the trail we needed could not be found. For 30 mins we searched before giving up and follwing a dry creekbed to another trail, which also could not be found. Once again we followed creeks until we came across a barely visible trail. Here we decided to follow the trail (all trails lead somewhere) and it took us south through the forest (somwhat in the wrong direction) and ended at a major creek (dry thankgfully) which bore east, and we followed this to the last trail on the map, fingers crossed this still existed.

Fenner Hall Div 1 coming in to the finish

It was HUGE (the trial I mean)! the sun had risen and we had a road. Invigorated we plowed on north and then east to Bredbo. We took off our shoes and socks to cross the Murrumbidgee and stopped for a chat with the Burgmann Div 2 team who we met. They had bad news - They were with B&G who were ahead of us. We packed up our gear and low and behold B&G plow through the river, the sight of us spurring them on to not even protect their. So Burgmann were wrong, and we had a race on our hands.

Sarah leads us home

At this stage we assumed we were second last with B&G close behind. We were the last second team to leave drop off and the nav was relatively easy. We powered through Bredbo and to a checkpoint at the Monaro Highway. We were greeted with huge smiles by those manning the checkpoint. "Div 1 - we've been waiting for all night - Ursies passed by about an hour ago, you guys are in 2nd place!"

35km to go, a well used road to follow and B&G not too far behind. We worked hard, checking off the kms holding a steady 8.5 kms an hour. Every now and then we would spy burgmann Div 2 ahead, and every now and then a safety car would follow close behind to protect us from any traffic. Vehicles with supporters driving to the finish would go by tooting their horns and cheering us on.Some people work harder than others...

5kms left, just before our final food break and we catch up to Burgmann div 2. With a big grin I tell them we want to beat them to the end. I receive a confused look from their nav as he points behind us, "I'd be more concerned about them." Only 200 m behind, B&G stride up the hill.

"No break team, we run the next two hills." My team kicks into action as we push up the hill, down the incline and up the next one. Behind us we can hear the B&G team yelling at each other to work harder. We do the same. Sarah and start to struggle. Cramps set in and I am no longer able to run up the hills. Both of us struggling to keep pace with Tristan and Justin, unsure if we can finish with the pace. 2 kms on and we can still hear B&G behind. As we top the rise in the distance we see endpoint. "Dump any water" I advise, as Tristan turns to check on the enemy.

10 minutes later we round the final corner and stumble to the finish, amongst the cheering supporters from all 7 seven halls and colleges.

Parking! you mean people actually drove here?

For 15 kms the support vehciles had been in radio contact with the endpoint detailing the epic battle that finished in a five kilometre sprint finish to the end after 70 kms if hard running.

A little tired

2nd place was ours!

Fenner Hall Division 1: Sarah (co-navigator), Tristan, (scout), me (navigator), Justin (scout)

Inward Bound 2010

2010-03-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

In just under a fortnight 32 brave residents will once again test their skills in the bushlands surrounding Canberra. We have spent the past 3 weeks training hard in night and day, running through the bush and studying maps in preparation for the big event.

O'Neill '09 nearly crashes through a spider's home

The team at Lake Burley Griffin

Mt Ainslie Summit

xkcd.com - Freedom

2010-02-25T16:50:00.000-08:00

Both stripping naked and Fiji are fun...who wants a conversation?

Wee Jasper Comedy Festival

2010-02-22T17:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, you have read correctly, the town with a population equal to 10 people and fifty sheep have a comedy festival. One of the many summer adventures I had was taking some friends to this grand occasion. Let me tell you that hilarity ensued.

My type of town!

Jan, the lovely owner of Wee Jasper's local, alerted me to this monumental annual event whilst I was passing through on my way to Melbourne for Christmas. It consists of lots of people sitting on the front lawn of the pub, and about six comedic acts being staged from the back of a truck. Named Capital Punishment, it featured comedians from Sydney, Canberra, and the South Coast. It was used as a way for these young performers to fundraise their way to the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Comedy on a truck - its funny even before she starts talking.

The MC tried quite hard to be funny, and he succeeded with his story about the hardships of a trolley, but otherwise he struggled a little. On the other hand, the acts (including Daniel Connell, The Stevenson Experience, Dayne Rathbone and Kathryn Bendall) were hilarious and totally worth the 60-odd minute drive. Other highlights included visiting Yass Macdonalds, who were struggling with the changeover to breakfast menu at 12:30am. It only took 40 mins for them to serve 5 people...

Damn straight we'll be back next year.

The rest of Summer

2010-02-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

I've been way too busy with work and uni to keep my blog properly updated, so I'm going to shoot through the rest of summer right here.

Christmas was fun in Melbourne, I caught up with my family and met my week old nephew for the first time.
I went to my first boxing day test with Lucas and got to watch the best run out ever and see Ponting smoke the Pakistani bowlers.

Katich smashes one through covers

I returned to Canberra just in time to ride my new bicycle to the coast for a New Years Weekend with friends from when I first moved into Fenner.

The Beast ready to go!

It was my first tour on my bike. I rode about 160km through Hoskingtown, Tallaganda State Forest, Major's Creel, Araluen and Moruya. I camped in Deua National Park where I met some very nice Canberrans who offered my sore and tired body soft drink, a chair and a campfire.

Tallaganda State Forest

My friends and I stayed in a Caravan Park in Tuross Heads. We were right on the lake and only a few kms from the beach.

The Lake on one fine morning

New Years was heaps of fun, we went to the local club and got drunk, we then returned to our cabins to drink more. Many a game of trivial pursuit was played, and we provedthat women are smarter than men (however this assumes means that Peistche is a chic).

Goofy makes another politically correct joke about Kim's sexuality.

The Epic Journey

2010-01-10T16:02:00.000-08:00

12 months ago I followed the road 'less traveled by' and found that 'it made all the difference'. So in 2009 I once again followed this philosophy and made the journey part of the holiday as I rode my trusty Suzuki to Melbourne avoiding the Hume Highway like an old high school aquaintance.

Off the usual tracks - empty roads of national parks are the BEST

My route took me from Canberra to Wee Jaspar - I stopped in the pub and made friends with the owner.

The Stables Tavern, Wee Jasper - this pub will feature in another entry shortly to come.

After receiving some directions and stopping by the local caves I took the Wee Jaspar Forest rd to Tumut, reaching some intense speeds on the wide loggers road.

Wee Jaspar caves - there chairs in the back are a ... different touch.

From Tumut I meandered to Tubarumba and camped the night before continuning my journey to Victoria through Corryong.

The Campsite at Paddy's River Falls, where I wish I had stayed.

The Towong bridge- crossing the Murray to Victoria.

I stopped and visited Jack Riley's grave - one of the bushmen who inspired Banjo Patterson's 'The Man from Snowy River'.The amazing winding roads of the Omeo Highway took me to Mitta Mitta and dropped by the local pub for a beer, a chat, and a walk around Australia's pioneer open cut gold mine.

Decorating one wall of the Mitta Mitta pub are these ingenius devices, zoom in on the photo to see what the locals have been up to

The next leg involved 20kms of a horrible dirt road and finished at another pub in the middle of nowhere.

After many years of searching I have finally found point B the location people talk about when going from A to B

Fourtunately there was a campground next door, so I set up camp, gave my credit card to the bar, and joined the Christmas party of local leadership camp group.

View from the Blue Duck Inn, a pub hidden within the bush!

The following day I passed through Omeo on the way to the coast I visited the memorial of one of Australia's earliest air disasters. I spent two ungodly hours on the Princes highway
from Bairnsdale to Moe before turning off and heading north through the logging towns of Noojee and Powelltown.

An old waterwheel at Noojee, used to power illegal gambling during the settlements early years

I finally reached Melbourne two daysafter three days on the road to be greeted by this smiling face.

The Bike That Phill Built: Construction

2009-12-14T16:35:00.000-08:00

An exciting day was in store for me. Phil Byron came over and Martyn (Cougar) Clarke meandered downstairs for this momentous occasion. Stocked with turkish pizza and beer we set about spending the day putting together a bike. There is not much of a story to it, so I'll let the photos detail what we did!

Step 1: crankset

Seat post and brakepads

Rear Derailleur

The shifters attached to the handlebars

Front derailleur and crankset

Two Phils sorting out the brakes

Adjusting the chain

Cougar takes it for a test ride

Completed - a modern day success story

Final Price for a fully functioning awesome bike - $2910.70.
It is worth noting that I have spent more since completeing the bike on things such as riding shoes, better brake pads, light, a rack etc. The above price is what was needed to get it safely on the road.

Well that's all from this series, but stay tuned for Phillip's Touring Adventures, coming to website near you!

P Gatt's CBD Discovery Tour

2009-12-09T15:24:00.000-08:00

On Friday last week I was bored and grumpy. In order to remedy this situation I organised a night out for the remaining residents at Fenner Hall that has since been dubbed a lounge tour.

I'm bored, someone fix me a drink!

Not content with the usual haunts of the student group at Fenner I vowed to visit a bunch of places that we rarely, if ever, frequented.

Somewhat incredulous that other drinking places exist outside Mooseheads and the ANU Uni Bar, and Fox Place

We started at North Bar because they serve free champagne and then moved onto The Australian. It was a good start to the night as we witnessed a fight (the bouncer had his shirt ripped off and the aggressor nearly glassed himself), a car accident, and we also nearly got run over by an overzealous driver.

Tanya, Cammie, and Bec were the female side of the touring crew

After the Australain we headed to a bar associated with the Crown plaza - Binara One - which was quite pleasant.

Yup, very pleasant indeed

From there we moved to the Holy Grail, a place which happened to have some sort of open mike night. By entering this pub we successfully doubled its occupants and we owned upstairs.

It was a bit of a find - the music wasn't great but I've heard worse in JJJ

We finished with cocktails at the Kremlin and by visiting Level 3 of Uni pub, a lounge bar I had never been to before.

All of us winding down at UniPub

The Bike That Phill Built: Finishing Touches

2009-12-06T20:30:00.000-08:00

The bike is nearly ready for assembly. The last things I need in order to have a fully functioning bike are quite trivial

1. I needed some cables for my brakes and gears shifters, complete with rubber tubing to protect the brilliant "gravy brown" of my frame.

This was surprsingly expensive!

2. I needed some metal caps called bike endsfor the cabling that helps stop fraying as well as keeping things looking neat and tidy. Also shown in the photo are little rubber donuts that stop the cable from bouncing off the frame.

I would never have thought of picking these up items withou advice from Phil Byron

3. And of course no bike is complete without a bell

This is the most exciting part of the whole bike!

Bell = $1.80
Cables and Tubing = $18.00
Bike Ends and Donuts = Free

Total
Frame Set $1099+
Wheel Set $ 495
Handlebars $135
Headset $ 77.50
Cassette $ 89.90
Crankset $198.02
Rear Derailleur $108
Brakes $86.38
Front Derailleur $54
Seat Post $54
Brake Levers $45
Handlebar Tape $22.60
Tubes $12.60
Tyres $71.95
Chain $31.50
Pedals $58.45
Shifters $153.00
Stem $36
Saddle $63
Bell $1.80
Cables and Tubing $18

$2910.70

Back in Kioloa

2009-12-02T21:10:00.001-08:00

I returned to Kioloa, ANU's coastal campus, for the third time this year to supervise Fenner's 2010 social committee's first training.

Training the social committee in the art of being social

The day wasn't too exciting, we started with a team building exercise, involving a blindfold and an obstacle course. My team failed epically.

You can already see my team is in trouble, turn around dammit.

This was followed be group planning, brainstorming sessions, goal setting, etc. After all the work was down I drove the group to the local liquor store to stock up on 'evening' supplies.

The all important brain storming session

The night started with a game of Kings (my favourite), then we retreated down to the fire pit to satisfy the primitive urge of dancing naked around a fire.

This is us; naked around a campfire

Hours later I indulged in some poker with three others and we played into the wee hours of the morning...

Its the new me

2009-12-01T17:27:00.000-08:00

Things have changed in the last month or so - after about 12 years it has finally happened.

The Bike That Phill Built: Saddle

2009-11-29T16:41:00.001-08:00

The saddle is an all important bit that will offer the support necessary for my delicate buttchecks whilst peddling for hours on end. Upon seeking advice I was told that each person has a unique bum and as such a bit of trial and error is essential. Further research from a friend alerted me to the fact that a big soft looking saddle doesn't always mean a more comfortable ride.

Satisfying yes...

I test rode a quite small and narrow saddle - the Selle Italia Flite Max Gel Flow (its quite expensive) - but it caused my right testicle to ache after 10 kms or so on the road.
I then tried this saddle - the WTB rocket (team black). Comfortable and yet affordable.

Its the colour that makes it so comfortable

black

240g

leather | flex-tuned shell | comfort zone | dna padding | kevlar corners

Saddle = $63 (including 10% discount)

Total
Frame Set $1099+
Wheel Set $ 495
Handlebars $135
Headset $ 77.50
Cassette $ 89.90
Crankset $198.02
Rear Derailleur $108
Brakes $86.38
Front Derailleur $54
Seat Post $54
Brake Levers $45
Handlebar Tape $22.60
Tubes $12.60
Tyres $71.95
Chain $31.50
Pedals $58.45
Shifters $153.00
Stem $36
Saddle $63

$2890.90

The Bike That Phill Built: Stem

2009-11-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

The stem is a piece of equipment that is attached to the front forks via the headset and also holds the handle bars in place. I don't have a close up of my stem but the important aspects are its length - as this dictates how far forward you lean whilst riding, and its bar bore - which needs to be the correct size of the handle bars. My handlebars require a 31.8mm clamp. It also had to match my fork width and I wanted a road stem to suit my drop down handlebars. I bought a Token Matrix Stem.

A picture of my stem sourced from the net

Once I had the stem I took my bike into Maladjusted and they attached the headset for me (this was a procedure that is best done with the proper equipment). The result is shown below!

One happy Gatt and his frame

Bar Bore: Ø31.8mm

Steerer Clamp Dia.: Ø28.6mm

Angle: ±8°

Titanium bolts or Cromo Bolts for options

Extension: 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130mm

Stem = $36 (including 10% discount)

Total
Frame Set $1099+
Wheel Set $ 495
Handlebars $135
Headset $ 77.50
Cassette $ 89.90
Crankset $198.02
Rear Derailleur $108
Brakes $86.38
Front Derailleur $54
Seat Post $54
Brake Levers $45
Handlebar Tape $22.60
Tubes $12.60
Tyres $71.95
Chain $31.50
Pedals $58.45
Shifters $153.00
Stem $36

$2827.90

The end of an elastic era

2009-11-17T16:08:00.000-08:00

For years I have possessed a remarkable ability to, at full pace whilst carrying heavy backpacks, fall upon either of my ankles and shrug off the injury. My ligaments behaved like rubber bands and would spring back in place with barely a change in my stride.

This all changed on Monday night when out on a light jog I managed to snap two ligaments in my right ankle, forever reducing my seemingly inherent joint flexiblity. Now I hobble like a cripple as I throw money to the local physio in an attempt to return my ankle to its former strength. Most disturbingly this has happened just weeks before the the hotly contested RSC cricket match.

Success in 2009

2009-11-08T17:03:00.000-08:00

In an unbleivable effort by our Resident's committe Fenner was able to pull in

2nd in the Interhall Sports Shield

and for the first time in eight years

1st in the Interhall Arts Shield -

we came first in every arts event except talent night (3rd) and Theatre Sports (last). This year I was a member of two teams - the winning pool (8-ball) team and I entered the talent show in the non-musical category conducting a science show in which I set myself on fire (don't try this at home kids).

Road Relay 2009

2009-11-08T16:49:00.001-08:00

Road relay is a running event held at ANU between the Halls and Colleges. Eight legs consisting of four 1500m circuits and four 3000m circuits are completed by four males and four females from each university residence. Last year Fenner came 3rd in an amazingly close finish involving Bruce and Burgmann. This year we turned up with a stronger team and hoped to push for a second place finish. We started well and entrenched ourselves in third place by the fourth leg (that's me).

Here I am coming in to the finish.

Once again running the 3km leg I moved myself from anchor to fourth runner to help ensure the other colleges couldn't catch us. I wiped 10 seconds off my personal best with a time of 10mins 15secs.

A photo taken about two seconds later; yes it does look like I'm about to cry, and yes I wanted to.

Unfortunately we were unable to catch John's who finished in second 2mins ahead of us, or Burgmann who had a team of super heros and finished 2 mins ahead of Johns. Our second consecutive thrid place in Road Relay is a nice change from three years ago which was our fourth consecutive last place. It also enabled us to finish second on the Sports shield, the highest we have ever finished in my long time at University.

The 2009 Road Relay Team: Buddee, Tani, Me, Martyn, Jusatin, Tara, Flick, Michelle

The Bike That Phill Built: Shifters

2009-10-27T20:20:00.001-07:00

There are a couple of types of shifters - there are some that are incorporated into the brake levers and cost the GDP of small island nations, there are some that sit on the frame and cost as much as a large macca's meal, there are some that sit on straight handlebars, and there are bar end shifters that attach to the end of drop down handlebars.

A shifter set - what I couldn't figure out, though, is why is the box so big for such small pieces

Good shifters are important as they regulate the gear change, and a smooth efficient transition from one cog to another is paramount when your struggling up a steeply inclined rocky path. As I find it necessary to eat a couple of times a day I couldn't afford the fancy brake/shifter combination so I opted for the next best thing: bar end shifters.

Ahh. I see now - there's more stuff underneath. Looks awfully technical.

Model Number	SL-BS77
Series	DURA-ACE
Shift Lever Type	Bar end
Cassette Capability	9-Speed
Front Shifting	Double/Triple
Material	Aluminum/clear coated
Shift Cable Casing	SIS SP41
Average Wight	178g

The shifters are nice, but I think the rug needs a good vacuum!

The set that I bought were the Shimano DuraAce SL-BS77 model. As my front and rear deraillers were Shimano the shifters had to be as well (SRAM have a different gearing ratio), and for those that now a little bit about bikes you will know that DuraAce is the top of the range racing series. The important aspects I had to take into account was that the shifters could cover the range of my front and rear cog sets. As my rear cog set (cassette) is a nine speed I had to ensure the shifters was compatible. I also had to ensure that the shifters were compatible with a three ring front cog set (front shifting).

So close, if I wasn't drunk I'd be excited!

Shimano DuraAce SL-BS77 = $153.00 (including 10% discount)

Total
Frame Set $1099+
Wheel Set $ 495
Handlebars $135
Headset $ 77.50
Cassette $ 89.90
Crankset $198.02
Rear Derailleur $108
Brakes $86.38
Front Derailleur $54
Seat Post $54
Brake Levers $45
Handlebar Tape $22.60
Tubes $12.60
Tyres $71.95
Chain $31.50
Pedals $58.45
Shifters $153.00

$2791.90

Nearly there, all I need is the saddle, the stem and to attach the front forks plus a few little odds and ends like brake cables...

Au domoni Iko - I love you (Beachcomber)

2009-10-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

Chronicling the events of Beachcomber is task beyond my alcohol addled memories. The bar was

The staff were awesome, here they let me pour my own beer!

open from early morning until late night and combining this with the three happy hours throughout the day it is understandale my natural compulsion to enjoy a glass of the amber drop was adequately fuelled .

Tash and Amanda: Nick (you'll meet him soon) and I spent all day night with these super girls. We danced, we drank, we swam, and I woke up in my bed. Due to unexplained memory loss much of this night is recorded through the photographic medium only

I met many a great new person, as well as spending time with the old. Katie, Helen, and Rachel were prese for the first night, and Tom joined me for the second and third night (I stayed an extra day to ensure my liver fully understood hard yakka).

Tom and I buy a jug of beer and a shot jaeger each - I think the Black Eyed Peas summed it up the best, Tonight's going to be a good night (played at 8:00pm on the dot; Beachcomber playlist)

I met a few Australians, Marina and her cousin on the first night and some Tasmanians on the the third. I made close friends with some Kiwis - Nick and I bonded over two nights,

Nick and I became firm friends. Soon I'll be seeing him in Melbourne

and Paul a fellow chemist (analytical).

Paul displaying Kiwi pride. I will be visiting him in the enxt 12 months!

I also meet a cute german chemist named Michel.

Chemists uniting from across the world.

The english were there too (as always) and of course - as it was the weekend - there were many japanese.

We buried Oji (uncle in japanese: nicknamed by his friends cuz he is sooooo old). Then I gave him a stick so I could touch his wood

The islands dive instructor was also japanese and not a night went by in which we didn't play his awesome drinking game sae no (remaned to fuck yeah go! by the aussies).

I'm devastated I have forgotted the Dive instructor's name, particularly because I was the only person who could pronounce it.

daytime was filled with sitting by the beach, juggling, cards games and tricks, and volleyball. The night was partying - dancing, swimming in the ocean, singing, drinking - the list goes on.

Nightime antics...

The true feeling of Beachcomber can be summed up in on phrase: To any general statement or question asked [such as what is there to do here? Is this place good? I feel sick/tired/hungover.) It's Beachcomber (optional refrain: relax).

Beachcomber!

Wananavu - Fantastic (Manta Ray Island)

2009-10-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

I had nothing but good things amount Manta Ray. Owned by an Aussie (yes I got drunk with him) it catered directly towards the Westerners needs. Simple accomodation kept it cheap, yet the food for breakfast lunch and dinner was surperb.

This is where I stayed. In amongst all those trees are the bungalows, dorms and beachside bar.

None of this just eat what you're given, there was a menu and waiters/waiteresses. Beer was cheap and the cocktails were good.
I arrived with a lovely Scandinavian girl (I've forgotten both her name and nationality) and with two brazilians and a portuguese lady - all of which are studying in Australia. All were top notch people who drank a little bit with during the day. The beach area was littered with hammocks and shady tables, which I used to fill in the afternoon lazing about.

Few hardy travelelrs have the constitution to hold up here for too long.

During this time I struck up a conversation with the german dive instructor, who convinced me into giving scuba diving another shot (I failed miserably two years ago whilst in the Whitsundays). After dinner that night (and another Bula dance led by the incredibly joyous and super camp activities instructor) I sat down to enjoy the evening by sinking beers and practising my japanese.

Yuki, myself, Aoki, and Kana. They actually helped bring my confidence in spoken japanese back! We drank sooooo much.

Yup, who read correctly. Fiji happens to be a place many japanese students come to study english. Why? you may ask (I did). Well, let's have a look at what it offers. It does have a university (hence the study), nearly all inhabitants speak english, the sun is always shining, kick arse beaches, its a super cheap place to live, and the islands are within hopping distance.

This is an example of a kickarse beach. Pay particular attention too the blue water, white sand, sunny skies, green leafy trees, multiple banana seats and hammocks, oh and the bikini clad women.

So on any given weekend a bunch of japanese students will be staying at the nearby islands. This is where I met Yuki (his full name is Yukihiro. His nickname is funny because its a girls name), Aoki, and Kana. That night my japanese improved immensely as I chatted away - much to their amusement. We drank beer, practised origami, and Aoki won the limbo competitions (take that brazilians!).

Origami, that's the portuguese lady between Yuki and Aoki. When I asked her for ehr name she told me I wouldn't be able to pronounce it. I tried but failed (and now I've forgotten).

The next morning I was up early and ready for my dive. I was paired up with the fijian dive instrcutor (he was warned I was scared shitless) and holding my hand we dive deep into the ocean (maybe 10 metres). Our groups was super lucky, we saw a reef shark, a turtle and an octopus. Most groups don't see either of those three. It was an awesome 30 mins and I was relatively comfortable the whole way.

This is a grasshopper, and while not spotted whilst scuba diving it was spotted whilst drinking, both of which I consider water sports.

After my dive a sucked down a few more beers and colourful drinks whilst reading my book, chatted to the token british boys (barely old enough to drink) that were present on every island before boarding the catamaran to my next destination, the self proclaimed party island BEACHCOMBER.

My sentiments exactly!

The Bike That Phill Built: Pedals

2009-10-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

For the pedals I relied on advice from the experts at Maladjusted. I wanted clip-in pedals, not the usual flat pedals I'm used to.

These are the dreaded clip-in pedals, garaunteed to a make anybody look foolish. They're also a nice anti drink-riding device

There were two good reasons for this - actually I lie, there was one good reason, clip-ins allow you to pedal on the full cycle of the crank, not just the on the downward push. The second reason is because I think they make me look more like a die hard cyclist. The reasons against getting clip-ins were I'm sure I'm going to crash because I was unable to get my foot clear of the clip, and the shoes look geeky.

Pedal + crank arm = forward motion (my crank is bigger than your crank)

The other decision involved in choosing my pedals was a cost to weight ratio. How much was I willing to spend to save on those precious extra kgs. As I am known far and wide as Bill Gates Jnr I opted for the cheapiness of weight. I finally chose the Shimano PD - M520 (they had to be Shimano to match/fit my crank arms).

And they say the subtle art of product palcement is lost! Hollywood here I come

Model Number	PD-M520-S
Series	SHIMANO
Pedal System	SPD
SPD Cleat Surfaces	both surfaces
Spindle Thread	BC 9/16" x 20 T.P.I.
Spindle Material	chrome-moly
Cartridge Spindle	yes
Cleat Retention Indicator	yes
Cleat Retention Adjuster	yes
Mud Shedding Design	yes
Pedal Body Material	aluminum / barrel finish
Reflector	SM-PD22
Average Weight	380g (pair)

What it will sort of look like when attached to the bike.

Known for being moutain bike pedals, it means that the design allows it to shed mud easier (marked in the specs as mud shedding design!), and as I am building a touring bike, which will have to traverse off road conditions this is a good thing. It also has cleat surfaces on both sides of the pedal, which means that I can clip in to either side.

It is a thing of unconstructed beauty.

Shimano PD M520-S = $58.45

Total
Frame Set $1099+
Wheel Set $ 495
Handlebars $135
Headset $ 77.50
Cassette $ 89.90
Crankset $198.02
Rear Derailleur $108
Brakes $86.38
Front Derailleur $54
Seat Post $54
Brake Levers $45
Handlebar Tape $22.60
Tubes $12.60
Tyres $71.95
Chain $31.50
Pedals $58.45

$2638.90

Dre Dre - Smile (Coral View)

2009-10-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

When talking to people differentiating between Korovou and Coral View was tough due to the similarity in their names.

I loved the word of the day idea, I surprised many a fijian with my command of their spoken tongue

Accounts from seasoned fiji island hoppers (I was becoming one myself by this stage) also warned of the similarity of the food quality served at the two resorts (low). Korovou did leave a lot to be desired, and my first meal at Coral View actually frightened me. When I first arrived I was a bit down because I met some fanatstic people at Waya Lei Lei and Korovou.

The resort from above, geez those clouds look ominous

The calibre of individuals at Coral View seemed to be somewhat lacking. However it was here that I met Debbie, a South African who had lived in England for twenty odd years and was now in the process of moving to Australia. This was her first stop on the Fijian islands and so she joined me in a few activities until she settled in. Our afternoon was spent snorkelling at the beach the movie Blue Lagoon was filmed at. It was a lovely beach with too many tourists. This was followed by volleyball and the dinner.

The beach and ocean from the Movie "Blue Lagoon" in the background of the photo. Thre was a really expensive resort on that island. I bet they had hot water.

Dinner was an unexpectedly awesome meal, and despite the common myths the rest of the meals were lovely. Dinner moved quickly into drinking, drinking games, card games, and card tricks - all led by the plethora of englishmen. The drinking games failed miserably as there were too many of us, but the card games were fun. We played a game similar to one called Angels and Yakuza I've played at Fenner. Its all about getting others voted out by accusing them of been a yakuza/killer (secretly pre selected before the game). I pretended I had never played before and pleaded ignorance to the strategies involved - I won all the games. That night I also became friends with Mata, the barmen (and I also think the resort supervisor).

The beginnings of a coconut tree from a coconut

The next day I set off on Joe's Water Taxi, with two other Aussie's (Shayne and Paige) - newly weds on their honeymoon. We had a delightful time visiting the underwater caves, you actually had to swim through a cave that was completely submerged without breathing appartus.

It was spooky swimming in the cave. From the second you enter you realise their is not enough room to turn around, if you run out of breath its just a bit of bad luck I guess. Not much in they way of safety precautions

Inside the cave. The light is coming from the sole torch the guide has. You spent a lot of time an absolute darkness.

That was fine for Shayne, the Navy Diver, but I was a bit apprehensive about it. I returned to find Tom had arrived, and so we set out exploring the island, meeting the absolutey gorgeous English girls on one of the trails.

Tom, Debbie and I enjoying cocktails, this activity can never grow old.

The evening followed the usual pattern; bountiful drinks (beer, cocktails and bounty rum) interspersed with fijian dancing with the staff, stories of the night before (Debbie had a couple having sex in her bunk even after they knew she was awake), I tried the card tricks I learnt the night before (to no avail - I now owe Debbie a beer whcih she collect when she comes to Canberra), plus card games with Mata (he taught us an awesome game called Golf that I was terrible at). My last day on the island was a morning spent reading inside, the bar area with nearly all the tourists. The good weather had finally turned and it was bucketing down...

So I lied, there were safety precautions at the underwater caves, unfirtunately they were in place to protect the rocks and not the tourists